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The Prescription Against Heretics

Chapter XXXIII.--Present Heresies (Seedlings of the Tares Noted by the Sacred Writers) Already Condemned in Scripture. This Descent of Later Heresy from the Earlier Traced in Several Instances.

Besides all this, I add a review of the doctrines themselves, which, existing as they did in the days of the apostles, were both exposed and denounced by the said apostles. For by this method they will be more easily reprobated, ¹ when they are detected to have been even then in existence, or at any rate to have been seedlings ² of the (tares) which then were. Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, sets his mark on certain who denied and doubted the resurrection. ³ This opinion was the especial property of the Sadducees. ⁴ A part of it, however, is maintained by Marcion and Apelles and Valentinus, and all other impugners of the resurrection. Writing also to the Galatians, he inveighs against such men as observed and defend circumcision and the (Mosaic) law. ⁵ Thus runs Hebion's heresy. Such also as "forbid to marry" he reproaches in his instructions to Timothy. ⁶ Now, this is the teaching of Marcion and his follower Apelles. (The apostle) directs a similar blow ⁷ against those who said that "the resurrection was past already." ⁸ Such an opinion did the Valentinians assert of themselves. When again he mentions "endless genealogies," ⁹ one also recognises Valentinus, in whose system a certain Aeon, whosoever he be, ¹⁰ of a new name, and that not one only, generates of his own grace ¹¹ Sense and Truth; and these in like manner produce of themselves Word ¹² and Life, while these again afterwards beget Man and the Church. From these primary eight ¹³ ten other Aeons after them spring, and then the twelve others arise with their wonderful names, to complete the mere story of the thirty Aeons. The same apostle, when disapproving of those who are "in bondage to elements," ¹⁴ points us to some dogma of Hermogenes, who introduces matter as having no beginning, ¹⁵ and then compares it with God, who has no beginning. ¹⁶ By thus making the mother of the elements a goddess, he has it in his power "to be in bondage" to a being which he puts on a par with ¹⁷ God. John, however, in the Apocalypse is charged to chastise those "who eat things sacrificed to idols," and "who commit fornication." ¹⁸ There are even now another sort of Nicolaitans. Theirs is called the Gaian ¹⁹ heresy. But in his epistle he especially designates those as "Antichrists" who "denied that Christ was come in the flesh," ²⁰ and who refused to think that Jesus was the Son of God. The one dogma Marcion maintained; the other, Hebion. ²¹ The doctrine, however, of Simon's sorcery, which inculcated the worship of angels, ²² was itself actually reckoned amongst idolatries and condemned by the Apostle Peter in Simon's own person.

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De Praescriptione Haereticorum

XXXIII.

[1] Adhibeo super haec ipsarum doctrinarum recognitionem quae tunc sub apostolis fuerunt ab isdem apostolis et demonstratae et deieratae. [2] Nam et sic facilius traducentur dum aut iam tunc fuisse deprehendentur aut ex illis quae iam tunc fuerunt, semina sumpsisse. [3] Paulus, in prima ad Corinthios notat negatores et dubitatores resurrectionis : haec opinio propria Sadducaeorum. [4] Partem eius usurpat Marcion et Apelles et Valentinus et si qui alii resurrectionem carnis infringunt. [5] Et ad Galatas scribens inuehitur in obseruatores et defensores circumcisionis et legis, Hebionis haeresis sic est. [6] Timotheum instruens nuptiarum quoque interdictores suggillat. Ita instituunt Marcion et Apelles eius secutor. [7] Aeque tangit eos qui dicerent factam iam resurrectionem : id de se Valentiniani asseuerant. [8] Sed et cum genealogias indeterminatas nominat, Valentinus agnoscitur, apud quem Aeon ille nescio qui noui et non unius nominis generat e sua Charite Sensum et Veritatem; et hi aeque procreant ex se Sermonem et Vitam, dehinc et isti generant Hominem et Ecclesiam de qua prima ogdoade Aeonum exinde decem alii et duodecim reliqui Aeones miris nominibus oriuntur in meram fabulam triginta Aeonum. [9] Idem apostolus, cum improbat elementis seruientes, aliquid Hermogenis ostendit qui, materiam non natam introducens Deo non nato eam comparat et ita matrem elementorum deam faciens potest ei seruire quam Deo comparat. [10] Ioannes uero in Apocalypsi idolothyta edentes et stupra committentes iubetur castigare: sunt et nunc alii Nicolaitae, Caiana haeresis dicitur. [11] At in epistula eos maxime antichristos uocat qui Christum negarent in carne uenisse et qui non putarent Iesum esse filium Dei: illud Marcion, hoc Hebion uindicauit. [12] Simonianae autem magiae disciplina angelis seruiens utique et ipsa inter idololatrias deputabatur, et a Petro apostolo in ipso Simone damnabatur.